Nota and Require: The Oldest Western Annotation Symbols and Their Dissemination in the Early Middle Ages

TY - CHAP

T1 - Nota and Require: The Oldest Western Annotation Symbols and Their Dissemination in the Early Middle Ages

AU - Steinova, Evina

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - The margins of medieval manuscripts served as space not only for textual marginalia but also for annotation symbols. Two of the most common early medieval annotation symbols are the nota monogram, used to mark passages of interest, and the require siglum, used to mark passages the require re-checking, typically because they contain errors. While annotation symbols were used from at least the third century BCE, neither nota nor require can be found in the Greek and Latin papyri excavated in Egypt. They appear in the Latin manuscript evidence from the fifth century onwards. They may have been coined as specific late antique Western variants of older Greek sigla known from the ancient papyri. While in Late Antiquity, they represented only two of many conventions in use for marking passages of interest and errors, by the end of the eighth century, nota and require became the preferred forms of the annotation and the correction signs respectively in the Latin West.

AB - The margins of medieval manuscripts served as space not only for textual marginalia but also for annotation symbols. Two of the most common early medieval annotation symbols are the nota monogram, used to mark passages of interest, and the require siglum, used to mark passages the require re-checking, typically because they contain errors. While annotation symbols were used from at least the third century BCE, neither nota nor require can be found in the Greek and Latin papyri excavated in Egypt. They appear in the Latin manuscript evidence from the fifth century onwards. They may have been coined as specific late antique Western variants of older Greek sigla known from the ancient papyri. While in Late Antiquity, they represented only two of many conventions in use for marking passages of interest and errors, by the end of the eighth century, nota and require became the preferred forms of the annotation and the correction signs respectively in the Latin West.

KW - medieval manuscripts

KW - medieval book

KW - late antiquity

KW - marginal annotations

KW - history of the book

KW - Carolingian culture

KW - early middle ages

KW - Intellectual history

U2 - 10.1484/M.BIB-EB.5.124987

DO - 10.1484/M.BIB-EB.5.124987

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-2-503-59516-0

T3 - Bibliologia

SP - 477

EP - 493

BT - Scribes and the Presentation of Texts (from Antiquity to c. 1550)

A2 - Shailor, Barbara A.

A2 - Dutschke, Consuelo W.

PB - Brepols Publishers

ER -